The Story of 1848

Revolutions of 1848 The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations or the Year of Revolution, were a revolutionary wave which erupted in Sicily and then, further triggered by the revolutions of 1848 in France, soon spread to the rest of Europe and as far afield as Brazil. These European revolutions were the violent consequences of a variety of changes that had been taking place in Europe in the first half of the 19th century. In politics, both bourgeois reformers and radical politicians were seeking change in their nations' governments. In society, technological change was creating new ways of life for the working classes, a popular press extended political awareness, and new values and ideas such as liberalism, nationalism and socialism began to spring up. The spark that lit the fire was a series of economic downturns and crop failures that left the peasants and the poor working classes starving. The result was a wave of revolution sweeping across Europe and raising hopes of liberal reform as far away as Brazil, where the rhetoric surrounding the Praieira revolt took many cues from European events, as did its thorough repression. The United Kingdom, Russian and Ottoman Empires were the only major European states to go without a revolution over this period. Russia had not yet a real bourgeois or proletarian class to initiate a revolution (and, more to the point, it lacked the communication between various groups of people to form such classes or to organise revolts). An exception to this was the Kingdom of Poland, where uprisings took place in 1830-31 (November Uprising), 1846 (Kraków Uprising) and in 1863-65 (January Uprising). Similarly, while there were no uprisings in the Ottoman Empire as such, there were in some of its vassal states. In the United Kingdom, the middle classes had been pacified by general enfranchisement in the Reform Act of 1832, with the consequent agitations, violence, and petitions of the Chartist movement that came to a head with the petition to Parliament of 1848. Though the UK did see revolts in 1831, in that other Pan European revolutionary era, when France, and parts of Germany, Brirain and Slovakia saw revolutions. The repeal of the protectionist agricultural tariffs called the "Corn Laws" in 1846 had defused some proletarian fervor. Elsewhere in the United Kingdom, revolution was far from the minds of those in Ireland, struggling and dying through the Potato Famine (the exception being William Smith O'Brien's debacle in County Tipperary). The United States saw the Seneca Falls Convention and the birth of feminism. Switzerland was also spared, having been through a civil war the previous year. However the introduction of the Swiss Federal Constitution in 1848 was a revolution in itself, laying the foundation of Swiss society as it is today. Although the revolutions were put down quickly, in their span there was horrific violence from the brutal royalists and other scumbags who crushed the revolts.. Tens of thousands were tortured and killed. Although the immediate effects of the revolutions were short-term, there were lasting legacies. Alexis de Tocqueville remarked in his Recollections that "society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror." But others may say, that this was the abuse of power, that absolute power corrupts, and that the nobles, and knights, and honoured individuals annhialtaing these revolts were doing what would be expected of them. During 1845-46, economic conditions worsened over the already-bad early 1840s. Causes are disputed, but there were crop failures (in an age where about 70% of working-class money went to food), and financial crises (notably in France) and resulting unemployment. Many left the farms for the cities, with resultant pressures. The working class was largely male, itinerant, uneducated, and sometimes violent. Corruption in high places in France reduced faith in the leaders; the textile sector of Germany was depressed in 1844-47. Next the middle classes began to get agitated. Whatever aspirations Karl Marx and his followers may have had as laid out in The Communist Manifesto (published in German February 1, 1848), the workers had little solidarity, and practically no organization.[citation needed] Both the lower middle classes and the working classes wanted liberal reform, and finally a group with some organization pushed for it. While much of the impetus was from the middle classes, much of the cannon fodder came from the lower. The revolts first erupted in the cities. French rural areas had grown fast, spilling population into the cities. The "respectable" classes feared the working poor, who had shown their muscle in 1789, and the uneducated, teeming masses seemed a fertile breeding ground of vice. There had always been alcoholic drink, freethought, crime, itinerancy, illiteracy, and food riots, and despite leftish analysis, in many ways the French working class was no worse off under industrialization than before. But there were salient facts: the worker toiled from 13 to 15 hours per day, living in squalid, disease-ridden slums. Traditional artisans felt the pressure of industrialization, having lost their guilds. "Dangerous" writers such as Marx became popular. Secret societies sprang up. The situation in the German states was similar. Prussia had quickly industrialized. Worker living standards had dropped; alcohol consumption had gone up in the 1840s. Feudalism was inarguably horrible for the poor, but the worker saw little gain from the new socio-economic system of capitalism and the accompanying social change.[citation needed] Rural growth had of course led to food shortages, land pressure, and migration, both within Europe and out from Europe (for example, to the United States). Population concentration led to disease, specifically, cholera, which at the time had not been tied to water supplies. The Irish potato famine exploded in 1845 and had migrated to the rest of the continent; there were poor harvests in 1846. But some lived relatively well. Aristocratic wealth (and corresponding power) was synonymous with the ownership of land. Owning land at this time was practically synonymous with having peasants under one's control, often duty-bound to labor for their masters. In a problem mirroring that of slavery in the United States, a principal aristocratic problem was controlling one's sometimes-dangerous source of wealth. Their grievances exploded in 1848. Until 1789, no one had earnestly contested the rule of kings on the Continent. In 1815, after Napoleon, a close semblance of the Ancien Régime was restored at the Congress of Vienna. This was no sooner established when the monarchies, the church, and the aristocracy were again threatened. There had been revolutions or civil wars in England (1640s-1650s), France (1789 and after), Ireland (1798), and the born-of-revolution United States, which seceded in 1776 from Great Britain, as well as Mexico, having split from Spain. A revolution against the Netherlands produced the seceding country of Belgium in 1830, a year that also saw another revolution in France. Unrest was in the air. "Dangerous" ideas kept upwelling, despite forceful and often violent efforts of established powers to keep them down: democracy, liberalism, nationalism, and socialism. In short, democracy meant universal male suffrage. Liberalism fundamentally meant consent of the governed and the restriction of church and state power, republican government, freedom of the press and the individual. Nationalism believed in uniting people bound by (some mix of) common languages, culture, religion, shared history, and of course immediate geography; there were also irredentist movements. At this time, what are now Germany and Italy were collections of small states. Socialism was a then-fuzzy term with no solid definition, meaning different things to different persons, but it roughly meant more rights for workers in a typically collectivist system. . . . We have been beaten and humiliated . . . scattered, imprisoned, disarmed and gagged. The fate of European democracy has slipped from our hands. Pierre Joseph Proudhon Ten years after the 1848 Revolutions, little had visibly changed, and many historians consider the revolutions a bloody failure. Thougth they really are wrong, as in reality every land in Europe today claims a democratic society, even Russia and Belarus, and really they have some right to claim to being so. Compared to in 1848, when not even Britain was genunley democratic. On the other hand, both Germany and Italy were unified in somewhat over 20 years, and there were a few immediate successes for some revolutionary movements, notably in the Habsburg lands. Austria and Prussia eliminated feudalism by 1850, improving the lot of the peasants. European middle classes made political and economic gains over the next twenty years; France kept its universal manhood suffrage. Russia would later free the serfs on February 19, 1861. The Habsburgs finally had to give the Hungarians more self-determination in the Ausgleich of 1867, although this in itself resulted only in the rule of autocratic Magyars in Hungary instead of autocratic Germans. But in 1848, the revolutionaries were idealistic and divided by the multiplicity of aims for which they fought -- social, economic, liberal, and national. Conservative forces exploited these divisions, and revolutionaries suffered from mediocre leadership. Middle-class revolutionaries feared the lower classes, evidencing different ideas; counter-revolutions exploited the gaps. As some reforms were enacted and the economy improved, some revolutionaries lost heart. When the Habsburgs lightened the burden of feudalism, many peasants lost heart; similar failures occurred elsewhere. International support likewise lacked. Autocratic Russia did not support such revolutions at home, but actively helped the Austro-Hungarian Empire in her war with a restive Hungarian splinter group. Both Britain and Russia opposed Prussia's plans on Schleswig-Holstein, tarnishing their view among Germany's liberal nationalists. Why did nothing happen in Great Britain and Russia? Russia was still feudal and oppressive, but Great Britain was mostly industrialized. Freedom of speech and the electoral reform of 1832 in Britain are telling differences with the rest of Europe. The net result in the German states and France was more autocratic systems, despite reforms such as universal male suffrage in France, and strong social class systems remained in both. What reforms were enacted seemed like sops thrown to quell dissent, while privilege remained untouched. Nationalistic dreams also failed in 1848. The Italian and German movements did provide an important impetus. Germany was unified under the iron hand of Bismarck in 1871 after Germany's 1870 war with France; Italy was unified in 1861 as the United States was split into two nations and exploding into internecine civil war. Some disaffected German bourgeois liberals (the Forty-Eighters, many atheists and freethinkers) migrated to the United States after 1848, taking their money, intellectual talents, and skills out of Germany and siding with the Union in the American Civil War, as they found slavery (and by implication, the Confederacy) distasteful with their image of America. Over 177,000 German Americans served the Union cause. Like 1861 for the United States, 1848 was a watershed year for Europe, after which things were never again the same. My view is if the 1848 revolution had won, then Prussia would never have been able to have caused World War One, and Poland would have got independence. So both World War One, and World War Two would not have occurred, also Belgium's King Leopold would have been ousted and have been no horror in the Congo Free State of his. Also 1000s of Gypsies were still slaves & serfs into 1848 in Transylvania, Jews did not get rights in Vienna, till liberal actions of 1848, In the Netherlands, 20,000 people died of cholera in 1848 alone, Low 1,000s died of cholera in Luxembourg in the C, I think a add on to that, as it was a different land really, And an extra low 1000s in Finland, at the very least, maybe more, Rightist Royal led Sweden's economy declines to 1830, So Liberals/Libs, found newspapers, Upto then, enclosures tore apart villages, Against limiting of protective measures for workers, by free trade libs, In line with revolts across Europe, It was not just against Lib policies, it was largely industrial anger, Like in the 1830s when 2 were shot while rioting for protesting against the jailing, 30die in 1848's disturbances, with the rioters & craftsmen shot by guards, opposing liberals changes, that were too capitalist for them, by the end of the century Working Class Sweden had formed one of the strongest Social Democratic parties there was, against the feudal and capitalist oppression,

Of a pro-democracy guy influenced by British Chartists, in jail for condemning the king, With liberal & socialist principles growing among the lower classes, Some even meeting Karl Marx, With some linked with the 100s of 1000s strong Utopian Christian socialism of France, And of Britain,

Most reliable sources claim the 1848 disturbances, Were partly a Communist inspired revolution, for democracy, With it really being a massacre of people wanting to crush royal power, Who had sexual pervert feelings at the thought of ruling over a nation,

And doing with people what they wanted, The collapse of guilds, meant more freedom in the 1840s & also uncertainty, Which encouraged the revolts, But the Communists did not control anything, So the 1840s revolt was against a royal & lib elite, by socialist principles, The 1850s saw still some famines, which would not have occurred in democracy, That were less ad than before, & the less democratic eras, The 1840s still saw only 5% & under that able to vote in the 2 chambers, It took till they next decades for the poorer to be able to vote, With big strikes & riots in the faminous 1860s,

In the 40s, the Libs majority Diet creates compulsory schools, And associations replace guilds, Which are less exclusive in terms of membership, And rights to do certain ways of trading, Or have power of them, And also make villages become more democratic, replacing the oligarchic rule of before,

So a great egalitarian, freedom boost, Religious freedom, free-trade, women's inheritance equality, & in 1862 local elections, Less famines occurred in this C, the last in 67, when allot of people died, 7/99,000die by then, including Norway, with huge emigration in famines,

In 1848 revolutions envelop Europe, Discontented industrialising classes request freedom, & trade unions, And democracy to deal with inequality, & the rich getting so much money, Many were shot,

But more were saved as regimes accept more reform, health, civil rites, And everything bettered, Revolts V rulers ignoring a legal aim at moves to utopia free society, & in most cases, Self-determination, At times US, Brits got, these by dreamers,

Britain's Chartists, saw in 48, 2-6mil signatures, For a secret-ballot/fair constituencies, And every male enfranchised/paid MPs/tri-annual elections, Which succeeds in future,

Then idea of paid MPs, started in the early 20thC, This was show it would not just be rich people, paid for by their own fortune who could be MPs, Now if they were paid, ordinary wages people could be MPs, And would be able to sustain their campaigns by funds from other people, But more importantly they could survive, And not give up being MPs, for other jobs,

The final evidence of the 1848 cholera epidemic, in Russia being so bad, Is that the city of Leningrad saw 12,000 people die in 1848, Allot for a city of low 100s of 1000s, And also cases in Ukraine, too other lands, The cholera epidemic was caused by famine, enourageing it, which then with cholera nd famine helped cause the 1848 revolt,

Famine saw 2.2-2.6million in 41-9 Russia/Portugal/Rhine floods, According to some estimates, including Germany upto 25/800,000, Probably the top number for Germany,

I am guessing that but lets say it suffered that badly, As apparently it suffered worst after Ireland, include it in Russia's famine stats, of 1840s, I am just guessing, but Austria would have affected this, & lets say a million died in Russia, And lets sat that the Rhine Floods,

And Austria-Hungarian famines caused this to reach 2.2million, I said it was that much as a encyclopaedia, claimed that many died, or 3million, I shall say Russia, must have suffered badly in famines, & I shall accept these stats, A iffy type, that may be wrong, but I shall trust German boys, Lets face, it is probably the case, as famine in Germany was that long, & Russia,

France plus 46-48 10/200,000, 200000 Austrian-Galicians from 46-55, Where Jews did not start getting rights back of owning property, & choosing which holidays till the 1860s, As they elected their rabbis, They were quite democratic, also they had small alliances with Poles here,

Plus in 46-9 the Switz 1/17,400, as the freest peasants, Not that many, but still allot in some ways, In Britain in the N of England in the 1840s, people marched for food, And a muddy piece of bread, would be devoured greedily, As it was seen people were so hungry,

I include that in the malnutrition statistics, With food riots in every country of Britain, in that decade, As it was the hungry 40s, The year according to my calculations from looking at stats, Say 45120 Danes, including child mortality, Which may not have been included in other states, stats,

Germany, & Denmark, in combined Gypsy hunts kill 1-2,000 in the C, Bagging their children as game, With 1000s more just whipped & tortured or getting ears cut off, And some massacred in early 19thC Romania, in 10s maybe, So allot of stuff,

With them discriminated against across Europe And living their lifestyle, a visit of many Gypsies, To a village remembered for the crimes, & affairs, for years, As among them, as among most societies there were criminals,

60/128,000Dutch, died where peasants of white hats, black loose big cloth dresses, And in nobly roofed dark huts, Where they ate potatoes, everyday with coffee, like N's grim peat digging, With some slightly richer areas, but it was a poor peasants land in those years, With them bending over for flat rural chores amid raining straw like grasses,

Seeing barge's rivers, The rivers surrounded by darks trees, & flat plains, totally disrupted by trees, & bushes, With rivers looking like canals, here barges transport the peat for exports, That bring their peat too the areas which need that fuel, for burning, Or just for their gardens, Or for themselves, as well, eating stuff, Flanders had 40000, with Wallonia maybe 1000s, Faroes 102 in a measles epidemic caused by the famine, Austria 1/3,400, & Luxembourg, at least 10s,

1840s Brits, were according to then eras', Earth's richest, per head, And in the size of the economy being bigger than even Russia, France, & China, Never mind adding on the empire, But then it sees Ireland's worst toll, of misery,

As it still was not democratic, or pro-welfare, A virus ruins, the main crop potato's, harvest, The potatoes rot in the ground, Midland's woods, lanes sided by green bushes, see gates by fields, slow canals,

And large amounts of people pushing towards workhouses, & cities for food, The potato blight was virus, but people did not realise this for long, It just got inside the potato, And turned the inside, to a emptiness, & white, slime, & stuff,

A typical scene, W straw Hut Hovels, a few in number, looking like pig dirty, Under empty hill sheltered goat path's fields, See their populations just die of starvation, And some in other areas have to move to get their chance,

But catch diseases, & the disease spreads, & causes many losses, In their bedraggled scraggily clothes, as they had no chance to stop & get some, And their was some help but not much, As charities were not effectively organised in those days, And government gave very little help,

Some even claiming the area was overpopulated, & bred to much, There were a few isolated political murders of landlords, Which were partly political, & others, of lower classes, Who can we blame, Well the effect of decades of misrule, & landlord, undemocratic control, partially, Also the way the Tory & Whig regimes, were both free market, And in my opinion not yet democratic,

With a minister bureaucrat brought over from the disastrous colonial running of India, To help run the famine relief, affairs, the national elite' still is to in many ways, With at the time some sicko popular support for royalty but some hatred too, Which increased in 1860s, & saw by 1890, Irish nats in many ways republican & radical,

And more money was spent on the Crimean war than on the relief of here, With more money for royal visits than many places relief, The Queen had more money than all the cash given to each provinces relief projects, It is also said she stopped the Sultan of the Ottoman's giving charity,

She stopped him giving it, and when he tried, She stopped the ships, so that is that, so she would be the highest aid giver, Neither were giving that much, compared to their fortune, And the Sultan was at the time causing many deaths, in poverty and high tax,

In total the royals received 385,000 pounds a year, While the government only spent 100,000 pounds on imported corn, To replace the 3.5million pounds worth of lost potatoes, In 1846, the largest aid getter that year, Infact this was in a sense genocidal,

As the government knew it was happening, but did not care, enough really, And more was given to her by the government, In her period of being head of state of the country, Than in the famine relief of the 1840s to 1850s, At that, the aid to the starving was sold to them, but given to the monarchy,

The largest donation, was 200,000 pounds from the Quakers, A British relief association raised, over the whole famine double that, But after 1847, it stopped raising money, & the famine, continued losing millions more pounds of potatoes,

The British government gave 22million pounds to slave owners, To forgive ending slavery in the 1830s, It is said, in total the government spent 9.5million pounds across the famine, A total doubled by spending from donations, It was 65million pounds on the Crimean war, war so supported by royalty, A war where balaclavas were worn by British troops, of wool, just showing the eyes, For the warmth of the forces in the war,

So in total a quarter quarters of a century of cash to royals from the state, Was a larger amount of the money than the amount of famine state relief, As I think it was more than that 0.35million, probably around 0.5million a year, As when including their state duchies, & other spending I am sure it is under half a century if you add on private cash, In 48, France's Louis Blanc socialists oust the king, From districts they held in terms of debate, Their organised members moving from leather making places, Small units behind streets, or in back streets, Of one hammering a shoe, & beside that someone touching up a pot into a cleaner look,

With some behind them debating how society could be more free, equal & socialists, Or reading about it, And textiles factories, unions & such, to overpower the army, & it's oppressive items, Setting up barricades & winning, A 40die protest reaches 3/10,000dead,

Some say these saw including 2000 massacred, In the clear the streets way by the royalist army, In the last revolt, With something like 4000 rebels, transported, too Algeria,

In total in the regime, over 4500 were evicted for political reasons, & in suppressing, And over 27000 arrested, But the royals had fled, As the people, wanted a free election, where they had the vote, And opposed lack of food, during the 1840s,

Sometimes clouds move slowly above you at dark, filling the sky, they hold, or apart like whirls, At this moment the political ways were moving fastly, Grey clouds under a black sky, Whatever was happening in France at this time, in that way,

The army do a rich's, only, election, Then Male-suffrage elects the anti-radical Napoleon's nephew Pres, 7mil conservative peasants-0.25, A disappointment to the left, that this person came to power, There is no doubt most wanted a vote, And that working class, pro-leftist groups wanted democracy,

But the people, were fooled to somebody, Who gave statements that indicated he would be pro-dictator long term, If somebody is voted as he is pro-dictator, that just means dictatorship, Like voting for a king, it proves democracy is right & dictatorship wrong, And they were fooled by imperial history statements of opposing poverty,

Maybe it was as the people supported a fairer society in some senses, But also idolised the military achievements of the past, And were not in favour of some tax rises of leftists regimes of the past, The new leader locks up the left, & ends democracy,

Even though many supported them, With 67/300killed in revolts, against that, that were stifled, by claims this was not a coup, When it was, A coup that was claiming to reimpose the universal suffrage, Part B of this

Here are some more sites, there are books and articles on the subjects in many internet places, or internet book shops, bookstores, at the bottom, are lists of which were the worst regimes of the past few centuries.

Links to our 100s of websites, http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

A site on the El Nino Famines that killed 10s of millions of Indians, and Chinese and others in the 19th Century

The Highland Clearances and it's full terribleness

A History of Trinidad and Tobago

A History of Jamaica

A list of golden goose style fairy stories, and myths, of hidden treasures, of inexaustible supplies of money

A site on the Belgian Congo, and how the king of that land killed 10s of millions of Congolese

Why the French Revolution was good

The most evil regimes of the 19th Century

A site on 1640s Britain

Worst 18th Century regimes

What were the nicest regimes ever